Le Coeur
by MapleFlavouredIce
Summary: And before he found himself falling and sleeping, he thought, “This is one sick joke.” And then, he was no more.
1. Prologue

**Le ****Coeur**

**A/N: This ficlette came to me one day, so raw and so explicitly clear that I HAD to write it. It was a matter of LIFE OR DEATH. **

**Disclaimer: Meh, why must I go through the ceaseless torture of having to admit that I don't own Kingdom Hearts??**

**X-X**

X-X

_For once, there was light in the darkness. It blinked and urged him to step foreword; and dumbstruck, Roxas did just that. But when he stepped into the welcoming light, he found it was just as dark – if not darker – than the prison he had just been kept in._

_And before he found himself falling and sleeping, he thought, "This is one sick joke." And then, he was no more._

X-X

Hoards of heartless swarmed around a frail boy, the keyblade drifting from his hand. Everything paled in comparison to the black engulfing his mind. His chocolate locks stood on end, shock still, and his attempts to break free from the low level heartless weakened. The colour from his face was slowly dripping away.

His friends were kept at bay by a large force field in the cavern, and a Chinese soldier by the name of Ping and a red dragon named Mushu found themselves stuck with the brunette whom went by Sora.

An ambush was all it took to catch the keyblade-wielder unaware. And perhaps Shan Yu knew this all along… But it was probably dumb luck that made the ambush fit so perfectly into Sora's schedule of fighting, lack of sleep, and little food. He should have been more careful. He should have been a lot of things, but most of all, he shouldn't have thought that he was so goddamn immortal.

X-X

_A heartbeat echoed in the chasm. But it wasn't the blonde's. He just could HAVE a heart. So it must be Sora's. Roxas recalled memories of concern and felt that they didn't match what was coursing through his soul. He searched through remorse, sadness, grief… none of them fit. And then he stumbled upon a memory of relief and pure joy. And it was so goddamn fucking perfect._

X-X

Ping and Mushu weren't even aware of what was happening to Sora. They had they own batch of heartless to worry about – they figured that the keyblade- wielder could handle himself. Alas, how wrong they were.

Even Donald and Goofy didn't notice Sora's predicament. Only when the force field died down and the heartless were gone did they notice that something was terribly wrong.

X-X

_He felt a breeze ruffle his hair. How long had it been since he had last felt the wind? Roxas didn't know. It was nice. Had a comforting feeling. The emotion Roxas was feeling was his soul at peace. But he didn't know that. Sora had felt 'at peace', but not this… relieved, almost baby-like comfort that was so straightforward that it befuddled Roxas. He knew he was confused, had felt it many times before, but he could not peg down what he was feeling, with the wind in his hair… he was anxious and expectant; Roxas finally concluded. And excited. _

_Yes… excited to finally be free. _

X-X

Sora didn't move anymore. He was too weak to do so, and the darkness was too strong. He felt powerless.

…He was powerless.

**X-X**

**A/N: Hahaha! How do you like the prologue? I hope you guys enjoyed it. It was as annoying as fuck to write. Whatever… Onto the first chappie!**

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	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: Okay guys, here's the first chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts.**

**X-X**

Despite all the shadows in the cavern, all Donald and Goofy could see was a soulless, black hole in the floor. It was as clear as a cloudless day, and the colour was thick, rich, and clean, the hole's very existence sent a cold sweat down their backs, and iced their fingers and toes. They didn't want to go near it.

Ever the optimist, Goofy fearlessly (or perhaps almost idiotically) asked Donald, "Gawrsh, don't cha think we should help Sora?"

Donald responded by hotly glaring at Goofy, the feathers on his neck bristling indignantly. Such was Donald to be the stubborn one.

"Why wouldn't we help Sora?" Goofy gazed at Donald with uncomprehending eyes.

"Well… gawrsh Donald. It just seemed like you didn't want to help Sora."

Donald waddled over to the hole and stuck one feathered wing in.

"What are you-"

The blackness grew in depth and the colour became murky with tiny glimmers of light flecked across its face. It slowly began to tug at all the beating hearts in the room, a soft popping sound accompanied each heart as it pumped slower; and the hole became more condensed, darker, stronger.

An insatiable fear welled into each of their hearts, and the four stood there silently, listening and waiting, paralyzed with a dreadful knowledge.

It was perhaps the dumbest of lucks that Ping was able to overcome the blanketing force, simply because he did not know the extent and sheer power of the darkness.

"Hurry!" Ping gruffly yelled, gripping onto the hems of Goofy and Donald's shirts. "We have to get out of here!" The two bumbling idiots stood gazing at the hole, willing chocolate locks to pop out of it.

Goofy looked at Ping with a dumbfound look. "What about Sora?"

"He's the keyblade-wielder!"

And yet again, the brunette's friends made a horrid assumption – as the hole writhed from lack of nourishment and ate what little emotion there was left in the air… he was only a child. He was by far not a miracle, nor did miracles tend to go by him. He had just been lucky before. And everyone forgets that they are. Not. Immortal.

And so the fearful four were long gone from the cavern when the darkness threw shadows into every corner, into every pore of the walls.

The blackness effectively cut off the cavern from the rest of the world.

X-X

_Roxas can see Sora now. Perhaps it would be better phrased to say he saw what was left of the brunette. There is a single heartbeat, and it is slow and irregular. The expression on the keyblade-wielder's face is similar to the pained expression of someone who has just lost their face and eyesight to a chemical explosion. Sora is so confused, so scared, so unsure. Yet Roxas is filled with an unexplainable joy as the darkness munches on Sora's legs._

"_If I had a heart," Roxas thinks, "it would surely be beating with…" he pauses. "Excitement."_

_The brunette is yelling something. And even though his voice can't be heard, Roxas can read his lips. They are moving fast and with effort, fighting off sleep. Roxas stares fascinated, Sora's gaze on him. And Roxas is relieved to find that if he turns his head, he can't hear the blood curdling pleas; and only has to worry about the burning prickling sensation on his neck. He is sure that he would have stopped the transformation if he could hear the yells… but he can't. And he isn't as nice as the brunette._

_Roxas realizes, as his stomach feels warm and dizzy, that his happiness is spawned from a single act – Sora's death into a heartless. And Roxas realizes that he doesn't give a damn. If he doesn't look, he won't bear witness to the slithering, and he can't hear the screams. It'll be like Sora was __never there__._

_And Roxas doesn't care to help the brunette because he's going to have a chance to be a Nobody again. And that's much better than being stuck in a Somebody. _

X-X

It's like there was never any darkness. There is light and clarity in the cavern. The air is devoid of sound. The popping of hearts gone, the slurping sound of light eating the darkness gone too. There is not the familiar sound of life, or of a beating heart.

…But there is a single bunny-like heartless… and a single blonde Nobody lying on the floor. Curled together.

Trying to share a heart… But alas, failing to do so.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: This chapter was a little harder than the others to write. I've always thought of Roxas as a Somebody, so I don't quite enjoy writing him as a Nobody who has to examine the emotions he's feeling with previous memories. Oh well, I tried. **

**Disclaimer: The heartless stole my patent on Kingdom Hearts. D:**

**X-X**

Roxas didn't awaken to a sun smiling at him, nor was the weather warm and soft. He didn't feel like he had just won the lotto, and he was actually quite cold. His fingers were numb and his joints were stiff. Pain prickled his body when he tried to move. It felt like he had been asleep for ages and at the same time, it felt like he hadn't had any sleep for an equally long amount of time. And he figured that was the way it was supposed to feel, that everything was okay even though it felt like the world and then some had crashed on top of his head. This was how it was supposed to feel, he figured, he was a Nobody after all.

Since Roxas didn't awake to sunshiny goodness, one can accurately assume that he woke up to coldness and darkness that rivalled a morgue. When he opened his sea-coloured eyes, he could barely see two feet in front of him, the lack of artificial light unnerving. Candles lay in tiny crevices in the room's walls and the occasional gust of frigid air blew in, signalling that the world he was in must be having one of its colder seasons. The only thing 'warm' here was the heartless that was curled up against his chest, a ever-so tiny heartbeat between the blonde and the heartless. The heartbeat was frail and soft, almost living while dying.

"Wha…?" The bunny-like creature (or so that was what it looked like to Roxas at least) lay silently and almost in a broken manner. It looked utterly defenceless and weak, and if Roxas had wanted to, he could have strangled it to death without it even struggling. It vaguely reminded him of an abandoned plushie. While observing the heartless, the blonde had the unexplainable urge to hug the animal and coo nonsense.

_Why is there a heartless here?_

Roxas quickly sat up, quietly brushing off the dust that accumulated on his shoulders, and placed the heartless on his lap (he didn't have to worry about it stealing a nonexistent heart) and gazed at his surroundings, peering at the dark walls with a keen interest. Once he got used to the lack of light, he could see quite well.

It was a normal cavern (it was more like a cave in how small it seemed to be, but Roxas felt that he should make a mental note of it has a cavern, in case it turned out to be bigger than he assumed), with lighting that probably would have just met safety regulations back at the Organization. The room the two were in was spacious and dome-like, and a tunnel led out of it. To where, Roxas didn't quite know, but he assumed that it went outside to the snowy world that lay there.

"SORA!" Roxas' head snapped towards the voice. It had a slight lisp on the 's' and had an annoyed quality to it. Shit. The disgruntled blonde stood up, the heartless waking upon hitting the floor. The animal glared angrily at Roxas, and the blonde met its glare.

"Shush now. I need to find us a place to hide." A cursory glance would have told anyone that there was nowhere to hide, and Roxas had already examined his surroundings thoroughly. If he had been anyone else's Nobody, he probably would have chosen to fight instead of flight. He inwardly cursed Sora for being so _nice_.

_Damn it. I can't let them find me._ Roxas looked at the petite animal and patted it on the head. Its skin (could that be called skin?) felt vaguely like velvet, but it was wispy and breathed in and out with his every touch. The skin was almost like a protective layer of darkness that embodied the nothing that was the heartless. It looked worriedly at him as the voices got closer.

"Gawrsh Donald, why do you think Sora's hidin' from us?"

_Think Roxas. How do we get out of this?_

There was a moment of silence when there was no talking as Roxas desperately looked around at his surroundings once again. The footfalls were unbelievably faint and Roxas couldn't help but think that the only purpose they served was to make his adrenaline levels rapidly rise as he irrationally took in their [his and the heartless'] situation. He found that he couldn't stop looking at the shadows, one of his own personal memories tugging at his thoughts.

_I could use the darkness! I can teleport us out of here!_

Roxas gave a little 'harrumph' in victory and snapped his fingers before quickly beginning to summon a portal. He stopped only moments later when a tiny sable pinprick began to fill in the void of air in front of him. He halted its birth into existence.

_No. If I use a portal, the Organization… they'll know that there's an unidentified Nobody using the darkness. _

He looked despairingly at the heartless. "What do you think Sora'd do?" It gazed impassively up at him, its eyes a dark jaune with the slightest of white gleams. Oh, right. It probably didn't know who Sora was, let alone know what he'd do in this sitituation. "Maybe, just maybe, if I think hard enough, I'll turn into Sora!" Roxas held up his thumbs and grinned at the heartless sarcastically. "What do you think?" The heartless merely twitched one of its ears, gazing at him like he was an idiot. _Can't hurt to try, right?_

"Sora!"

"Where are you Sora?"

The blonde couldn't concentrate on Sora (even though his name was being yelled by four bumbling idiots) and found his mind steadily wandering from his grasp. _What should I do if they found me?_

"Sora!" _Fight, I think._

"Come on, Sora!" We gotta get going!" Roxas grabbed the heartless – to which it gave a soft whimper in protest – and plopped it behind a particularly dim candle.

"Stay here." The blonde ordered in a quiet voice. He clasped his hands together to stop them from running through his hair and slid down the side of the wall to the floor, in the shadows – in case there was any chance that they wouldn't see him, he really wasn't in the mood for fighting – and chanted in his head the brunette's name continuously.

"Come on guys, we gotta find 'im!" The voice was the loudest and closest yet, their foot falls echoing harshly off the walls. Roxas looked down at his hands. They glowed a milky white in the darkness.

_Should I just summon up a portal?_

The footsteps were even closer than before. They were right around the corner. He was starting to panic about being found even though he was the keyblade master, and cursed Sora for not getting swallowed by the darkness in a more secluded place. Roxas took in a deep breath and got up, looking back at the still heartless.

"Looks like we fight." He whispered to it.

"Sora!"

"So-O-OORAAA!"

_Goddamn it. _He thought, before adding as an afterthought,_ SORA!! _Roxas summoned the keyblade in a flash of pearly light and pounced in front of the tunnel leading into the hellhole of a dead end.

Perhaps luckily for Roxas, he caught the four off guard, Donald jumping back in shock, and Mushu spat out a tiny fireball reflexively, Ping's eyes large and his mouth slack. But Goofy (the one that should have been, perhaps, the most surprised) looked perfectly at peace with the blonde's sudden appearance.

"There you are Sora! Gawrsh, we were worried." The dog (was it a dog?) gazed at Roxas with a grin from ear to ear at a mission well down and patted his shoulder and turned around to – most likely, what else could he be doing? - head out. _What. The fuck. _Roxas gazed at the foursome stupidly, thoughts halted._ …Might as well go along…_

"I'm, um… sorry… for, you know, scaring you guys." He said unsurely, scratching the back of his head sheepishly to reinforce the idea that he was Sora. Ping nodded his head (Roxas was sure that the soldier wasn't a he, but didn't question it) and pointed a thumb to the entrance of the tunnel.

"Come on. We're late for our next mission."

Roxas nodded his head earnestly, both to continue his charade as Sora, and out of his eagerness to bolt as soon as he got outside. Dumb idiots. Thinking he was Sora? _At least there's one good thing that comes from being Sora's Nobody._

Donald blinked slowly before ruffling his feathers. "Are you alright Sora?" The bird's lisp on the 's' in Sora aggravated Roxas to no end (why, he didn't know; maybe he just didn't like the bird?), but he hid his feelings and merely nodded. _Wait, the heartless._

"Hey guys?" Goofy turned around to look at Roxas. "I need to go get something. Gimme a sec?" The four nodded before turning to get out of the cavern. Roxas made a noncommittal sound of gratitude.

Roxas jogged back to the dim candle (it was red, and reminded the blonde of a certain pyro) where he had hidden the heartless. It wasn't there.

"Huh." Roxas recalled a memory of Sora chasing desperately after Riku, darkness closing in on them both; the brunette hoping that the silvette wouldn't leave him. The black ate everything in Sora's path, leaving the silvette in plain sight. His words could either not be heard or would not be headed, for Riku didn't turnaround. Then the pain came when the brunette realized that the silvette didn't want to come back.

Roxas slowly turned around, a forlorn look on his face. He had come to enjoy the presence of the heartless, sharing in on its dear wish for a heart. It had become… a friend of sorts for the blonde, with that single, underlying struggle to be considered real. He began to make his way to the others, a hand absently rubbing his eyes. His face was slightly flushed with an unwelcome heat, and his breath was more or less coming out in ragged sighs; but Roxas suppressed whatever it was he was feeling. The blonde suddenly remembered the keyblade in his hand and sent it away, giving it a momentary glance. _The Kingdom Key? _The keyblade was gone before Roxas could truly register which keyblade he had summoned, and he paused. _Why would I summon the Kingdom Key? _

"Come on Sora!" Donald called to Roxas, the group making its way out, the familiar lisp on the bird's words.

"Coming!" Roxas ran towards the others, recalling another of Sora's memories, one of when the brunette had been with his friends on some island. The memory had a fuzzy quality to it, the textures of the wind and the tree blurred by the contentment of all three of the young teens. They all sat on a tree, gazing out at the sea and the setting sun. Roxas paused for a moment before smiling to himself.

The tunnel out was rather short and the blonde shivered slightly as the temperature quickly dropped. There were puddles and Chinese kiosks (could they be described as kiosks?) and fireworks scattered all over the rock floor. Roxas looked at a puddle, gazing at his tanned features and chocolate locks. A single eyelash lay on Roxas' check and he went to flick it away… when he realized that he didn't quite look like _R_oxasanymore.

_Is this some kind of sick joke?_

**X-X**

**A/N: I was thinking of my cat when I wrote Roxas' interactions with the heartless. C: I've always thought of them as cute little pets. XD What do you guys think of it so far? Oh, and I'm planning on making each chapter larger than the next… :\ I hope I can do it.**


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